page_title: Chess in China
section_title: Modern history
hierarchical_section_title: Chess in China / Modern history
caption_attribution_description: English: GM Ye Jiangchuan, chess player from China
context_page_description: China is a major chess power, with the women's team winning silver medals at the Olympiad in 2010, 2012, and 2014; the men's team winning gold at the 2014 Olympiad, and the average rating for the country's top ten players second in the FIDE rankings at the end of 2014.
  Chinese progress has been underpinned by large government support and testing competition in numerous tough events. Currently nine of the world's top hundred players, including the world's highest rated woman player, Hou Yifan, are from China. The current Women's World chess champion Ju Wenjun is also from China. However, countries like Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Armenia, and Israel still have an edge in experience over their Chinese counterparts.
  Chess has only gained popularity in China in the last few decades and still trails Chinese chess and go by a considerable margin. There are about three million people in China who play chess, of which 300,000 are in the federation.
context_section_description: The European form of Chess was only introduced in China during the 19th century but has never been as popular as Weiqi or Xiangqi. Alexander Alekhine was the first great chess player to visit China in 1933. In an exhibition played in Shanghai, he was held to two draws, one to Xie Xiashun, the leading xiangqi player of the first half of the 20th century and later nicknamed "Centurian chess king" because at 100 years old, he was a strong player in all the three strategy board games. Xie, not related to former women's world champion Xie Jun, helped to promote the game and was the top player in China after World War II . In 1935, he visited Malaya and Singapore and defeated their champion as well as the British Air Forces champion Hunter. In 1936, in Guangzhou, the British sponsored a tournament with top players from Austria, Britain, China, Germany and the United States. Xie won the tournament convincingly by drawing one and winning the other 18 games. In 1987, Xie (who lived in Wenzhou) died at the age of 101.
  Chess was not listed as a competitive sport in China until 1956. In the same year, the 1st Chess Exhibition Tournament was held in Beijing, where only six players from four provinces participated. But at the National Chess Tournament held one year later, 22 players from approximate 10 provinces and cities were attending. From 1957 to 1966, national competition was almost held once a year and the number of players grew exponentially.
  The Chess Association of China was formed in 1962 as a minor affiliate of the Chinese Xiangqi Association due to the lack of popularity for the game at the time and only became a fully-fledged independent organization in 1986. It has been only in the last 30 or so years that chess has made major inroads in China, where the game is seen as the poorer cousin of the more popular xiangqi. Chess was banned during the first eight years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), but by 1974 there was an easing of the ban that saw China begin to participate in international competitions, the first being in 1976.
  In the early 1960s, chess classes were conducted at Children's Palaces or Amateur Sports Schools in key chess cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Wenzhou and Hangzhou. From the mid 1970s, junior chess classes have also been established consecutively in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanxi and Tianjin, where professional chess coaches were hired or arranged to deliver trainings. This has facilitated the growth of many young players. Many big names had been trained at those chess classes when they were young, such as female grandmasters Liu Shilan and Wu Minqian; female master An Yanfeng; male master Qi Jingxuan, Li Zunian, Liang Jinrong, Yang Xian, Lin Ta, Ma Hongding (马红丁, born in 1963) and Wang Li.
  Before the ban on chess was imposed in 1966, the Chinese national team played four international matches with the Soviet Union, represented by master players.
  After the end of the Chinese National Chess Championship Final in December 1958, three Soviet masters, Boris Baranov, Mamadzhan Mukhitdinov and Alexander Grushevsky visited China. They met top three finishers of Chinese National Chess Championship in Cultural Garden, Guangzhou. The Chinese lost all three games. In the game Grushevsky-Xian Quan (later known as Sin Kuen after leaving to Hong Kong) the Chinese had good winning chances in the middlegame but blundered badly and lost. The USSR team then went to Shanghai and Hohhot, where they met local chess players and defeating them all as well.
  In 1963, China invited a Soviet team to play the return match. To prepare for the match, the Chinese National Sports Committee from June 14 – July 15 selected over 20 players from all over the country to form a National Chess Training Team: Deng Wenxiang, Feng Bingrong, Feng Zuquan, Hong Kemin, Hou Chengji, Huang Xinzhai, Jian Mingji, Li Chengyi, Li Zhongjian, Li Zhu, Liu Chengwan, Liu Zhenguo, Lu Zhuoran, Qian Zongxiang, Wang Bijun, Wu Weiwen, Xu Hongshun, Xu Jialiang, Xu Tianli, Zhang Donglu, Zhang Fujiang and Zhu Fushan. Jian Mingji, the young player from Guangd
caption: Ye Jiangchuan has been one of China's leading players in modern history and is the national team coach. He became National Champion for the first time in 1981
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